The Miles Franklin Award Longlist was announced this week. Arguably Australia’s most prestigious literary prize, the winner receives $60,000.
- Randa Abdel-Fattah - Discipline
- Dominic Amerena - I Want Everything
- Lyn Dickens - Salt Upon the Water
- Toni Jordan - Tenderfoot
- Steve MinOn - First Name Second Name
- Konrad Muller - My Heart at Evening
- Omar Musa - Fierceland
- Josephine Rowe - Little World
- Madeleine Watts - Elegy, Southwest
- Sean Wilson - You Must Remember This
“Destabilised histories, faltering memories and chequered geographies meet in the pages of the 2026 Miles Franklin longlist. From Far North Queensland to Tasmania and all the way to remote Western Australia, these novels remind us of the vastness of this continent, the many times and places that Australian stories inhabit, and the global networks in which ‘Australian life’ is invariably embedded. This year’s longlist is haunted by ancestral inheritances, the human capacity for self-deception, and the ways we make space for grief. These novels hold up mirrors to little worlds and large ones too.”
I am excited to see Randa Abdel-Fattah on this list for her novel Discipline. The Palestinian-Australian writer has been the subject of much controversy, with political interference leading to her being cancelled from various events, and many of her words taken out of context. I have not read her book (and don't know that I will) but I believe it has been wrong to silence her. I am glad the Miles Franklin Award has not succumbed to pressure. I am looking forward to hearing her speak this week at the Sydney Writers' Festival and making my own assessment.
The shortlist will be named in June, with the winner announced in August 2026
And another thing.... I also have to say that the Miles Franklin Award has a crap website. The Award is sponsored by Perpetual, but surely it could have its own site and not be buried among pages about wealth management.